The minimum purchase in Zynga's underground "Platinum Purchase Program" is $500, payable by wire transfer (see email below). The reward over buying online with your credit card: Extra points with which to buy virtual goods for the company's Facebook games. If you refer a friend to the program, you get even more points. Zynga, meanwhile, gets word of mouth, which is especially important since Zynga keeps this bulk sales program hush hush; it's not mentioned on the company website, nor within its games. If you Google for it, you'll get a few complaints for disgruntled customers and a couple of posts from a blogger named "Loot Lady," who writes that it was "hard to find a lot of information out about this" program.

Sony's typically the equal-opportunity offender, poking fun at everything from Wii to iPhone, but the company's latest marketing campaign is unmistakably aimed at Microsoft's motion-sensing peripheral. Head on over to www.yaybuttons.com to interact with a two-dimensional PlayStation Move, which will pop out a series of quotes from Kevin Butler -- Sony's fictional VP of Realistic Movements -- explaining Sony's tactile advantages over Microsoft's Kinect. While members of the Sony Defense Force will surely eat this up in spades, the rest of us will simply enjoy this latest tussle, and go back to waiting for both companies to put their money by their oral socket and make more games worth playing.Sony launches anti-Kinect attack website, yaybuttons.com originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 12 Sep 2010 04:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.PermalinkJoystiq | yaybuttons.com |Email this|Comments

An epic story, incredible pacing, and a spot-on mix of old and new elements make Reach's campaign Halo's best yet. Oh, and when you've finished the story mode, plan on spending a large chunk of your life in the massive online universe. Any way you cut it, Halo: Reach is a fantastic swan song for Bungie, and it leaves behind a Spartan-sized set of boots for 343 Industries to fill.

The passing of 65 years has failed to dim Phil Mongillo's memory of the 36 harrowing days he spent on that awful island in the Pacific. And there is no more iconic image of American valor than the famous flag-raising on Feb. 23, 1945 which remains indelible to survivors like Mongillo who witnessed the real thing.

We'll try a little bit of Good, Bad and Ugly to break down the game this week. For example: Good: The team played hard and with passion this week, something always lacking in the Weis era. Bad: We just lost to Michigan. Ugly: For the fourth time in five years. Well, that was...fun...let's do some more

Why is there debate over an issue that appears to be common sense? They died for their country. Why not honor them? What difference does it make how they died. They were in uniform and serving in a combat zone.

I'm going to attempt to write an article about the 1970 Buick GSX, as it happens to be one of my favorite American muscle cars and they are getting to be few and far between. Now, a lot of you may not even know that Buick built a muscle car, but they did, and as it turns out, one of the most powerful ever built.

Rocky, a baby squirrel that fell out of a tree, was placed with a litter of newborn kittens and was adopted by the mother cat. The squirrel adapted so well to his new family so well that he eventually learned how to purr. via I Can Has Cheez Burger

It's hard to believe that Madonna, the wild child of the '80s, is now the mother of a teenager. But as of Wednesday, the pop queen's oldest daughter, 13-year-old Lourdes Maria Ciccone Leon, is officially a high school student.

The number of people in the U.S. who are in poverty is on track for a record increase on President Barack Obama's watch, with the ranks of working-age poor approaching 1960s levels that led to the national war on poverty.

Sean Malto won the second stop on the new Street League Skateboarding tour Saturday night, earning $150,000. The 21-year-old Malto won after Chaz Ortiz fell on the last trick in the final section. Malto finished with 120.4 points to Ortizs 118.4. Nyjah Huston, who won the tours inaugural event on Aug. 28, was third with 105.9 points. Street League skateboardings three-event series features participation from some of the worlds top street skateboarders including stars such as Ryan Sheckler, Paul Rodriguez Jr. and Chris Cole and core street skateboarders P.J. Ladd, Mike Mo Capaldi, Brandon Biebel and Dylan Reider a combined roster of athletes that includes winners of past X Games, Dew Tour and Maloof Money Cup events.

Facebook just launched a new web app not-so-memorably dubbed Discover Facebooks Popular Pages. Its a visual interface intended to help you find more pages to Like based on your past selections, whats popular and what your friends like.The app divides pages into nine categories: Musicians, Sports, Celebrities, Movies, TV Shows, Media, Politicians, Brands and Games. You can view images representing different pages in each category, or you can view pages from all categories, which include other things like local businesses or photographer friends pages, for example.On the right, Facebook has included a list of the friends who have the most pages in common with you. Clicking on any of the names will pop up a list of your mutual likes, and you can click on the All Likes tab to see the other things they like.You can also look at the most popular pages by country with the drop-down menu in the top right corner of the site.Facebook provides a ton of ways for you to discover new pages to like as it is. Youll of course see pages in your friends news feed updates and profiles, youre asked to search for pages to like when you create a new profile, and the site regularly displays boxes with suggestions.It might all seem like a bit much, but Facebook wants to be a portal that connects consumers and brands because it can provide services or advertise to both, so were not surprised that Facebook is adding new ways to build those connections. [Thanks, Eti]More About: App, browser, discovery, facebook, like, Pages, social media, social networking, web appFor more Social Media coverage:Follow Mashable Social Media on TwitterBecome a Fan on FacebookSubscribe to the Social Media channelDownload our free apps for iPhone and iPad